Chemical Reactions
by Chronically Lazy
Summary: Dark Ichigo finally manages to take over Ichigo but what happens when he runs into someone who makes him feel and become a slave to the very emotions he despised Ichigo for feeling?
1. Why won't my title fit?

**Disclaimer: I still do not own Bleach. **

**Hollow, Ichigo - same difference... right?**

* * *

He looked down at the town the below, it was filled with people going about their daily business, utterly oblivious to his existence. "Where to start." He said to himself with a pleased smirk. He did not have that much time and he knew it; beating that Ichigo was harder than he though, even when he attacked him by surprise. Lying somewhere, tied up and hopefully unconscious was Ichigo the moment he woke up he would most likely try to escape and fight his way to the surface but until then he, Hichigo, was king in this castle and he planned to make every minute worth it.

She was not looking for him but she found him anyway, he was just standing there looking down at Karakura. She rarely saw him so when he disappeared two days ago she was not surprised or bothered, it was not until she found out that Rukia, Orihime and Chad had not seen him either that she began to suspect something was wrong. Even then she was not worried because it was Ichigo; he could take care of himself. Seeing him now, his hands shoved into his pockets, the slight slouch that she would never have associated with Ichigo, she could tell something was wrong so she walked over to him. "Oi, where the hell have you been?" She asked as she hit him upside the head.

He was actually taken by surprise; he did not know the living body had so many limitations - he was unable to sense the person who had approached him. He turned around in a flash, with the intention of grabbing whatever had had the gall to hit _him _by the neck and flinging it down towards Karakura, his hand was barely an inch from her neck when he froze. He felt as though he was falling, falling into those surprise widened brown eyes of hers. He heard the low moans of slow moving water before the river actually came into view before his very eyes, he looked down at his hand when he felt something wet drop on them - they were tears. He looked to his right and sitting beside him, with her arm around his shoulders was the same dark haired girl – perhaps young – with the same large brown eyes, this time shining with unshed tears. Who was she crying for?

Suddenly he was falling again.

The pain spread through him right side and up the rest of his body. Tears began to run down his cheeks as he sobbed, "Are you crying again?" an impatient voice demanded. He looked up at her; she was even younger this time, "your mommy's waiting for you." She snapped and pointed behind him, he turned to see a light-haired woman smiling and waving at him. A feeling he could not quite place spread from the centre of his chest outwards – was it happiness of something? He waved back, and once again he was falling.

It was wet and he was standing by the river, the light-haired woman was being devoured by a hollow, he was immobilised by fear. It took all his strength to pull himself from that onslaught of images.

Hichigo fell to his knees; he felt as though he had been stabbed in the chest repeatedly, his head was throbbing, his limbs were shaking and for some reason his eyes were watering. What the fuck had she done to him? "Hey Ichigo." She reached down to touch him but he pushed her away so violently that she fell.

"Stay the hell away from me you bloody bitch." He spat as he rose his feet, he held his head in his hands as he walked away.

He sat on the roof of her house silently. Two days ago when he had met her and obtained a pounding headache as a result, he had made a mental note to kill her as soon as possible. Hichigo had tried to give serious thought as to how to end her life; on two occasions he had been right behind her, ready to strike only to find he could not find it in himself to harm her, every time he thought about her it was as if some other part of his mind opened up and images from Ichigo's past flowed in.

He looked solemnly at the waning crescent moon, why hadn't she followed him when he pushed her away two days ago? From the way she acted in Ichigo's memories, she should have chased him and knocked some sense into him – literally. He almost laughed.

He did not remember everything; he had not seen everything because it seemed to cut off at about a year and a half ago – it just seemed to end. And then there was the problem of his sisters, would they be crying for him right now? From what he had seen every time Ichigo disappeared the twins, especially the fair haired one, almost fell apart.

What was the rush of emotion? It was too powerful and unfamiliar to Hichigo but he managed to hold his ground, what kind of hollow would he be if he allowed himself to be ruled by human emotion? He would just forget about it and them and let Ichigo deal with this rubbish when he finally decided to surface.

"Ichigo?" A head peeked out from the window below him, a head belonging to a girl who obviously had no respect from his wish to have nothing to do with her. "How did you get up there?" He rose to his feet quietly with the intention of leaving before he was overcome by memories again. "Wait, where are you going?" Had it been anyone else or had he been himself – the heartless hollow he truly was – he would have left without a backwards glance, but at the sound of her voice he instinctively turned. She was climbing out of her window, she was going to try to climb up and she was going to fall.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he yelled at the dark haired girl who immediately froze. She already had one leg out the window.

"Coming up, why?" the innocence with which she asked was almost annoying – did she not understand that she could fall or she merely did not care.

"Go back in you idiot! It's dangerous!" he was down the roof in an instant and with agility she never knew he had, swung himself, from the edge of the roof, through her window and into her room. He pulled her back irritably and she landed almost painfully on the floor of her room.

What had he done? He should never have approached her house in the first place because it could only lead to him doing something stupid – like he had just done, but it was not really stupid; considering all she had done for Ichigo, meaning him, it was the least he could do. He was paying her back, he was actually indebted to her because of all she had done, maybe not for him but for this body that was also his. He hated being indebted.

He had technically just saved her life – in a sense – so that should cover her choosing to be his sparring partner when they were younger despite her being much, much better than him and all the times she ever had to stand up for that wimp Ichigo. He looked around her room as he silently tried to convince himself that he was not being stupid but merely paying a debt.

Tatsuki was about to yell at him for pulling her back so harshly and for having the gall to enter her room without permission but the way he moved and looked around caused her to hold back her word.

He moved with slow, gliding steps as he explored the room that had featured so many times in those accursed memories and was now almost too familiar to him. It was different though, if only slightly. He ran the tip of his fingers over the wall as he moved, then over her desk. He paused and looked up at her book shelf, on the book shelf was a framed picture of a ten-year old Tatsuki and a ten year old version of an all too familiar orange haired idiot, their arms around each other's shoulders, "I hope you know I'm not Ichigo." He turned the framed face-down on the shelf.

"I know." She said slowly. He let out a brief, humourless laugh,

"Is that why you did not chase after me on the hill?" why did he find himself dreading the answer?

"No, I just figured out that you weren't him." She was standing right beside him now, she lifted up the picture and smiled a half smile before placing it up-right on the shelf, "I did not follow you because Ichigo and I are no longer like that – we passed that stage a while back." She turned to him and smiled, "you can say our friendship peaked early."

The silence that he let fall between them was a comfortable one and he would have been fine with letting it stretch for the rest of eternity but it seemed she just could not let good things be. "Have you been home at all?"

"Is there a point in me going to Ichigo's home?"

"Your sisters miss you."

"I don't have sisters." He said shortly. She held his face in her hands and turned it so he was looking at her,

"You are a part of Ichigo aren't you? I don't understand much of what Ichigo is involved with but I know you know who they are and how much they mean to him… and you." She said sternly as she stared straight into the eyes that conveyed how little of Ichigo there was in there. Hichigo pried her hands off him,

"This is not the brother they know, best to leave them with a memory they like than a reality that would crush them."

"So where are you living then?"

"Why do you care? You know I am not Ichigo so why bother?"

"You are a part of him." She stated simply, "and you're in his body – for some reason, I gave up understanding anything that had to do with him."

"So you're going through all this trouble for a person who your relationship with 'peaked early'?" His eyes followed her as she made her way to her closet and pulled it open,

"I take it you are not going home and have nowhere else to stay." He had to admit, she was right. "And our friendship did peak early but only on his side – some say I'm loyal to a fault." He watched with humoured eyes as pulled a futon from the corner of her closet, "I'll still do anything for any of my friends. For me in friendship there is no such thing as peak or a decline"

"There's a peak and a decline in everything." He said as she walked towards him, the futon in her hands.

"You have a lot to learn." She thrust the futon heavily at him. Yet another debt to add to his list.

"You are being stupid." He said as he caught the futon, "I am dangerous."

"So am I." she said with a slight smile, "now go to bed; we have school tomorrow."

Hichigo stared at her calmly in a somewhat concerned manner, "I'm not Ichigo."

"I said I know that."

"I don't think you do."

* * *

**A/N: I _had_ to write this. I could not continue 'Potateo, Potato' without getting this out of the way. Anyway it will continue when it wants to.**

**I made some adjustments thanks to some kind suggestions from a reviewer. Thanks reviewer! **


	2. Let's Not Ask Questions

**Let's Not Ask Questions**

* * *

She walked around the wood-panelled room silently; she had given up trying to escape. Today was proving to be one of the more ridiculous days in her life, because one moment she was minding her own business, walking to the dojo and the next moment she was being kidnapped by a large, scary looking guy and a guy in a striped hat while Rukia told her it was for her own good. Yeah right. Apparently they had noticed how much time she spent with Hichigo and believed her life was in danger yet somehow he was not the one kidnapping her.

She had spent the first twenty minutes trying to escape but she eventually realised that it was futile. Tatsuki slumped to the ground and pulled her knees to her chest. She was going to miss karate and her coach was going to have her head. She bit her bottom lip as she looked around the empty room idly, wondering when they planned on letting her go and how she was going to make them pay.

A loud, unexpected crash caused her to leap to her feet; Tatsuki walked carefully towards the door. Another crash, this time loud enough to cause her to jump. An intense, stifling pressure steadily filled the room; it seeped through the walls, through the door and filled the small, rectangular room.

Her heart slammed rapidly against her ribcage as if trying to break free, she could heart the blood rushing in her ears, her limbs were already freezing up – she had no idea what was going on outside her prison but she knew needed to was one more crash before the place fell eerily silent. The silence only served to create a frustrating tension; it amplified the sound of everything including her rapid, nervous breaths, her pounding heart, tense footsteps.

When a section of the wall burst open she felt as though she was going to break apart – she was so stunned and tense that she actually fell when she back-stepped.

A tall, masked man with long orange hair stepped through the gaping hole and into the room. He was pale with red markings on the horned mask he wore. The pressure was stronger now but somehow, maybe because she could see the source of it, it affected, and bothered, her less.

Hichigo stared at the dark haired girl, could she really not recognise him? After he had gone through the trouble of coming all the way to Urahara's shop to get her away from those people who believed they were 'protecting' her from him, she did not have the decency to recognise him. After almost a week of sharing the same space, she could not recognise him.

He walked slowly towards her and leaned forward so they were eye-level, the tip of the horns on his mask almost grazing her forehead. "Ichigo?" she asked. Before he could respond her fingers were in his hairline, searching for the edge of the mask so she could pull it off. He grabbed her hands swiftly and pulled them away from his face. Her hands were so small – in fact, she was small; looking at her, he remembered why he had started searching for her so frantically when she was late to the dojo, because he _needed_ to protect her, maybe not for her, but for him.

He brought her hands to the edge of her mask and allowed her to pull it off. "I never figured you one to play the damsel in distress."

"I was not in distress." She insisted. Hichigo held out his hand to help her up,

"Of course you weren't. I was joking." He said in a tone that made it difficult for her to determine whether it was sarcasm or not.

"What's with your hair?" she asked. He was about to reply when he felt as sharp pain in the back of his mind; he stopped and leaned against the wall, his eyes shut tightly in concentration. "Are you alright?" she placed her hand on his shoulder. The worry in her voice was almost touching.

Ichigo was drawing nearer to the surface; he was trying to regain control. Hichigo, lowered his head and with all his energy forced the shinigami backwards; shoving him deeper into his consciousness. "Ichigo!" her voice jolted him back to reality, he really hated the fact that he was making her worry so much.

He opened his eyes slowly and grinned, "Psych.". She shoved him in mock anger,

"That was not funny."

"Why what did you think was happening?" he laughed. He was actually happy she was worried about it – she was worried about him. He did not like her being worried but he was happy she was worried about _him_. There was this strange feeling in his chest that he did not quite understand,

"I don't know but I was still worried." She looked up at an amused Hichigo, "it's not funny."

"It was, face it." He led her out of Urahara's partially destroyed shop, he noticed her staring at the unconscious figures of Tessai and a few others, "Don't worry, they're not dead; I felt that me killing them would not sit well with you."

"Thank you for the consideration." She shook her head in playful reproach. They stepped outside and Tatsuki smiled, "Thank goodness."

"Let's go somewhere."

"Are you mad? My karate coach will kill me." She was already hurrying from the shop towards the dojo,

"Then I'll kill him back." She stopped and turned, Hichigo was still standing in front of the shop; he was waiting for her reply.

"Where do you want to go?" she saw a smile tug at the corners of his lips. Hichigo stepped towards her carefully,

"The park, the cinema, even your-so-called dojo." They were barely inches apart, "Don't you want to show me around?" he held out his hand and said in what was almost a whisper, "I'm not going to be here forever you know; you better be nice to me before you go around whining about what you could have done."

"When?"

"When what?" He asked, his hand was still waiting for hers,

"When is Ichigo coming back? Is it soon?"

"I don't know," he was growing impatient, "I'm just saying, so hurry up and make a decision." Tatsuki spun round and began walking off,

"Alright, let's go somewhere," she turned to look at Hichigo who was staring at her with both amusement and intrigue, "or are you going to stand there for ever? We don't have all day you know."

"Where's the rush?" he walked quickly so he could catch up with her, "plus I have to get into my body; right now I'm not very visible to normal people."

"I'm not even going to ask." She was staring at him with those large brown eyes that could get him to do anything; how was he supposed to help himself? He held one of the loose ends between his thumb and index finger and pulled it gently, undoing the bow.

"You should also change into something else; your uniform makes you look like a kid."

Tatsuki stood there for a second and a half, a faint shade of pink making its way across her cheeks before she quickly regained her senses. She swatted his hand away with forced irritation and said, "Only do that if you want to die." She snapped although she was steadily turning redder, "and I do not look like a kid."

He pulled the red bow tie off her neck slowly, leaned forward and dangled it in front of her, "This and your face, I wonder which is redder." She stared at him dumbly, literally unable to speak. Hichigo smirked and straightened himself, he draped the tie around her neck, "You're right, we should get going; it looks like Urahara is heading back and I don't want to be here when he and that cat get here." She had a lot of questions just waiting to get asked but she was too confused to ask; she simply nodded.

He picked her up bridal-style and shunpoed away. He did not do this because simply walking away would be too slow; Urahara was much farther away than he led her to believe, he did it simply because hehad thought through his options and found it to be the most pleasant. Now, with her in his arms, holding onto him tightly as he raced towards her house, he was sure that he picked the right option – or at least the most pleasant.

* * *

**A/N: I think Hichigo won't be as prude and scowling as Ichigo, he seems more... I don't even know how to put it. Can someone help me? anyway, **

**\ /  
" peace out.  
**


	3. Hi People  an announcement

I decided to write this story properly, so I am rewriting under the title 'The Pain of Being A Man'. Hichigo isn't quite as nice in this one though.

**A/N: thanks for reading so far. :) **


End file.
